Burned boy begs for help in E China

Updated: 2011-08-30 16:54

Yang Weihao, a 9-year-old boy with a mask, holds a balloon while standing on a street in Hefei, capital city of East China's Anhui province on August 29. Yang's mother and aunt take him into the city to beg for donations for his medical service fee. Yang has to wear the mask to prevent the infection of his severely injured face which was badly burned by a straw fire in a farmland in his home village of Jieshou city, Anhui province on June 4, 2011. Yang's family has spent more than 200,000 yuan on the hospital treatment and cannot afford to provide any more money to complete Yang's treatment. They are begging for the fee of corrective surgery for Yang's left hand. Yang has to keep a ferula wrapped in cotton yarn in his mouth to prevent his lips from fusing together. Before Yang, a 5-year-old boy named Wang Gengxiang, who also wore a mask and suffered from severe burns, drew public sympathy and received donations after his story was posted on the Internet. [Photo/CFP]